How to Learn from Our Mistakes

Monday’s Tip for the Week:  “Good judgment comes from experience and experience come from poor judgment.”

Before we discuss how to learn from our mistakes we should first establish why we should learn from our mistakes.  We should learn from our mistakes because learning from our mistakes relieves stress.  We should also learn from our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them.  Unfortunately, sometimes it takes repeating the same mistake more than once to learn a lesson.  The important thing is that the lesson is learned and you can move forward.

The first step in learning from your mistakes is not an easy step because we are often taught that making a mistake is a shameful thing.  As difficult as it might seem you must admit that you have made a mistake.  Don’t blame other people for your mistakes.  Once you start to blame others for your mistakes you limit any chance that you have of learning from the mistake.   You don’t have to make admission of the mistake a public declaration.  Admitting the mistake to yourself is good enough.  Once you have admitted to making the mistake you are ready to employ the following tactics that will help you learn from your mistakes.

Start by putting your mistakes into a new category.  Discontinue thinking of your mistakes as failures.  See them instead as opportunities to learn.  More is learned from mistakes than successes.  Use the lessons you learn from your mistakes to foster future success.

Take an inventory of things you can change.  Don’t play the blame game.  Instead of dwelling on who caused the mistake think on how a change can be made.  Think of how things could be done differently.  Become empowered with the thought that you, yourself, can make the necessary changes.

 

Forgive yourself.  Put things into perspective.  Monitor how you view mistakes.  It does not serve any purpose to take mistakes too seriously.  It may be tempting to blame others for your mistakes especially if you are harsh on yourself for making mistakes.  Blaming others as discussed earlier, only gets in the way of learning the much needed lesson.  If you forgive yourself for your mistakes you are less likely to play the blame game and more likely to prosper by learning.

Get another’s perspective.  Ask someone that you trust what they think of the situation.  We are often too close to the situation to have an impartial view.  It is much easier to get an impartial view if we ask someone’s opinion who is on the outside looking in.  It is better to get someone’s take on the situation who is not emotionally attached.  Their impartial view that is delivered with love and tact is just what is needed to learn from a situation.

Adjust your view of the situation.  See the situation from different perspectives.  Think of how others who have experienced the same mistake feel.  See the situation from the perspective of if you had made a different choice.  Look at the situation from differing angles and see what lessons are apparent.

Congratulate yourself.  Whenever you have even the tiniest bit of growth from lessons learned that result from making mistakes congratulate yourself.  You have added value to your life by lessons learned.  Be happy that you have had the chance to learn from your mistakes.

(This article was written via ‘How to Learn from Your Mistakes’ by Elizabeth Scott, M.S.)  http://stress.about.com/od/positiveattitude/a/learn_from_your_mistakes.htm